We're on Christmas break here at the Belleque house. Johanna is a teacher so she's got a few weeks off. I took a few days off work as well. It's been nice spending time together. The last few months have found me putting miles on the dogs when other just wanted to spend time with their Daddy.
We've been offering dog sled rides as a fund-raiser and it's going pretty well. We're sharing a dog mushing experience and raising money in the process. We didn't book every possible slot so I've got time to do a few longer runs as well. With the rides and longer runs, we should still come close to our goal of 1000 miles by January 1st.
I've spoken at length about trail conditions. We are on the brink of the best trail conditions of the year. Temperatures were below zero for a time and then it snowed, and snowed, and snowed. The kids are on Christmas break and the skys clear today so snowmachines are driving everywhere packing down trails. The dogs and I still need some good long runs. Hopefully we'll be able to do those in the next few weeks. Still anticipating starting the Kusko 300 with 1200 to 1300 miles on the dogs. Would like more, but I'm happy with what we've accomplished. It hasn't been easy.
The dogs have been laying low and look great. Many of them shed their winter coats late this year. Don't know why some dogs shed their coats in June and others in October. Need to research that. A few of my late shedding dogs have been looking pretty scronny with their short coats. Their coats are filling in and everyone looks like a husky again.
With Bernard out with his weird paw injury, I'm still planning to start the K300 with 10 dogs. Most of those 10 dogs look great. Still not sure about Hagar and his injured rear leg. Luckily Dr. Hagee will be in Dillingham before I head to Bethel so he can get a good comparitive examination on that leg. I'm sure he can go to the first checkpoint, but he may be capable of more. He's looked really good lately. Ginger is the one dog I'm worried about. She was always a very reliable little dog, but has become irratic in harness. If everything is moving along smoothly, she does fine. She doesn't pull hard when we slow down, but she pulls hard the entire way home. Maybe the trick is to get her up to Pike Lake (even if it's in the sled) and let her pull us back to Bethel. I'm kidding of course, but the thought has crossed my mind.
Been a while since I've posted individual dogs' mileage. Some of the dogs with early injuries have less mileage then others. You can see who has been consistently healthy.
Hagar-665 Lucky-825 Luke-824 Bing-859 Charlie-834 Felix-755 Olaf-846 Lucy-684 Phoebe-763 Ginger-829
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